Some ten years ago, I was on a business trip in Germany and visited a congregation in Frankfurt a.M. A very lively one, comments from the audience, small bags with candy being passed along, very friendly people, just the way you would like a congregation to be. People massed up to greet me after the meeting; then sort of "floating" towards me, the other ones giving room for her, comes a very small, fagile, old woman, and she had this sort of radiance around her, shining - and I am not joking, neither was I stoned, I was just experiencing depressions and generally a hard and tough period of my life - anyway, she comes up to me, quietly bends my head down towards her, kisses my forehead and says, "My son", looks at me with her shining eyes - and disappears in the crowd. "She is one of the remnant", says the one next in line to greet me.
I felt blessed somehow, as if she had "read me" and then told me that "it's all going to be OK, you are OK, just stick to the course and abide in Jesus, and things will turn out just fine". The feeling stuck with me for weeks, and even today, I can easily recall it and also recall not the actual look of the woman but the shining presence of her.
As if Jesus himself had eased my worried mind. Today, I am amidst troubles even worse than then, but I manage to dream away at times, recalling that strange meeting. Anyone else having experienced something similar?